


Explorers

by tablelamp



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 16:17:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17831933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tablelamp/pseuds/tablelamp
Summary: What if Q visited Voyager prior to the events of "Death Wish"?





	Explorers

Kes was putting away the last of the medical instruments in Sickbay when she felt something brush against her mind, subtly enough that she might have missed it if she'd been concentrating on something else. It felt like a presence of some kind, as though someone was in the room with her. She could only catch a fleeting sense of the presence before it ducked out of her reach, but whatever it was didn't feel sinister. The overwhelming sense she received from it was one of...amusement.

"Doctor?" Kes asked, turning to see if he'd suddenly reactivated and his presence was what she felt. It wasn't, though--he was nowhere to be seen. Kes regarded the room. Someone was still here; she was sure of it. "Hello? Can you hear me?" She turned to face the other side of Sickbay, uncertain whether the presence she felt was in a specific physical location in the room or not. She wanted to face it if it was. "Are you trying to communicate with us?"

"No, but since you mention it, I can," said a voice behind her.

Kes turned to see what appeared to be a human in a Starfleet uniform sitting cross-legged on a biobed. Again, Kes got a fleeting sense of amusement from the visitor, but she couldn't tell exactly what the visitor found so amusing. "Hello. I'm Kes."

"I'm known as Q. You'll have heard of me," Q said with a casual wave.

Kes frowned at Q. Her species had no stories of any such person, and she wasn't familiar enough with human culture or mythology to have any points of reference for anyone named Q. She didn't think Q meant any harm...not at the moment, anyway. Kes did sense, though, that if Q did mean harm, that could be very dangerous.

"Or maybe you won't," Q said, eyebrows lifting. "This is intriguing!" 

Kes thought so too, but probably for different reasons. "Are you all right? Do you need help?"

"Certainly not!" Q said, looking offended.

Kes didn't know why what she'd said had offended Q, but she tried to explain. "I only meant...I don't know how you're communicating with me. In case we're cut off, if you wanted to ask for help, I wanted to give you the chance right away."

"Oh," Q said, anger deflating somewhat. "Then...I suppose...thank you."

"You're welcome," Kes said, relieved that Q's appearance wasn't a distress call.

Q gestured to her. "Tell me, how long have you been in Starfleet?"

"Oh, I'm not officially in Starfleet," Kes said. She suspected she shouldn't tell Q anything about the ship or its crew, but talking about herself seemed all right. Besides, if she didn't talk about herself, she wouldn't have much to talk about, and she was curious about this person.

"That makes two of us," Q said. "I suppose I could change my clothes in that case, but old habits die hard." 

Kes said the first thing that came to mind. "Why do you wear a Starfleet uniform if you're not in Starfleet?"

"It's easiest to appear to people as what they know," Q said. "Besides, it annoys some of them, which is really all I could ask for."

"Why?" Kes asked. "Don't you like them?"

"Some of them," Q said. "Haven't you ever annoyed anyone you liked?"

"Probably," Kes said, thinking of the Doctor, "but not on purpose."

"You should try it," Q said. "It can be fun when you're bored."

"Are you?" Kes asked. She suspected Q wasn't being entirely honest with her (and perhaps wasn't ever _entirely_ honest), but there was some truth there somewhere, if she could just get beyond Q's surface.

"Am I what?"

"Bored."

"Not at the moment," Q said, with just enough lightness of tone for Kes to feel what was beyond the words--that yes, boredom was a serious problem for Q.

"That's good," Kes said.

Q looked at Kes for a moment, apparently trying to figure her out. Kes wondered what she looked like--how she seemed--from a Q point of view. "I don't think I've ever spoken to an Ocampan before."

Kes hadn't expected that. "You know my people?"

"In passing," Q said. "Explore the galaxy enough and you're bound to bump into some species you know. So tell me, how does an Ocampan wind up on a starship?"

"I wanted to explore," Kes said, "to learn more than my homeworld could teach me. What about you?"

Q frowned. "Me?"

"You're on a starship too," Kes said.

Q's frown smoothed into an amused expression. "I can't deny that. I suppose exploration is one word for it."

"So you won't be bored?" Kes asked, remembering what Q had said earlier.

Q looked at her again, this time as though Q was genuinely seeing her. Kes was used to being underestimated because she was small and soft-spoken, but she had also survived difficult situations and learned a lot by listening to others. Sometimes people showed you things about themselves by what they tried to hide.

"Yes," Q said, sounding almost begrudgingly impressed. "What is it like to have such a little life?"

"Oh, I don't think of it as little," Kes said. "Before Neelix, I never met anyone who lived for more than nine years." She paused. "Sometimes I worry."

"About?"

"Leaving behind my friends. Never really knowing what happens to them, or whether Voyager will make it home." She sighed. "And I know they say the holodeck creates perfect replicas of places, but it doesn't. I tried to use it once to visit Ocampa when I was feeling homesick."

"And?" Q prompted.

"It doesn't smell the same," Kes said. "The flowers weren't the right colors, and the anra plants had leaves in clusters of three instead of five. I know Voyager doesn't have many records of Ocampan environments, but that meant there were details the holodeck couldn't have in its program, and without those details, it made me more homesick than ever."

"Would you like to see Ocampa?" Q asked.

Kes frowned at Q. "When?"

Q shrugged. "Now, if you want."

Kes couldn't deny being interested in seeing images of her home. "You can show it to me?"

"Oh, I can do more than that," Q said.

With what sounded like a snap of fingers from Q, there was a sudden flash of light and the environment around them changed entirely. They were standing on a path with greenery all around them, a bank of lights protruding from the rock walls above. To their left, there was a large waterfall flowing into a river. Kes could feel the moisture in the air on her skin, could smell the fragrant anra.

"This is one of our gardens," Kes whispered, amazed.

Q feigned surprise. "Is it?"

Kes looked from one side of the garden to the other. "Yes. I had a plot here where I used to grow..." Her breath caught at the sight of the purple-blue blooms, and she ran to her old plot, kneeling beside it. "They're still here. Someone's still taking care of them."

Q flashed into place beside her. "I'll never understand why humanoids fall actively in love with the most fragile life-forms in existence."

"Because they need us," Kes said, cupping soil in her hands and inhaling its scent. It felt right. It smelled right. She really was home. She turned to Q. "How did you do this?"

Q shrugged, smiling in self-satisfaction. "You say that as though it were difficult."

"It would be for me," Kes said. "Voyager is light-years away by now." She looked around once more, trying to absorb every sound and scent, every detail of the plants and the rock walls. She was happy on Voyager, but some part of her would always recognize Ocampa as her home, and the gardens had always been the place where she felt most like herself. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to take as much of this visit into her memory as she could so she could revisit it when she was feeling homesick. "Thank you." A sudden thought occurred to her, and her eyes opened. "Wait. How long have I been gone?"

"No time at all," Q said. "In fact, they won't even..." A fingersnap and a flash of light, and they were back in Sickbay. "...miss you."

Kes stood, looking around to confirm that they were really back aboard Voyager. Voyager's transporters had seemed magical enough, but this...this was something beyond the scope of what anyone aboard Voyager could do. "That's amazing!"

"Why, thank you," Q said with a mocking little bow.

If Q could do this... "Could you send Voyager to Earth?"

"Ah," Q said. "Technically, yes, I could."

"But you won't." Kes wasn't exactly disappointed that Q had refused. Earth was more of a concept than a reality to her, although she would've liked to see it one day. But she was sorry for her friends.

"The relationship between the Q and the Nacene--the species you know as the Caretakers--is...contentious," Q said. "Not that I'm above a little contention. It makes life interesting. But given that our species...I'm going to say share some similar abilities...there's a treaty between us not to interfere in each other's affairs, and if I were to undo the effects of their actions by returning Voyager to Earth..."

Kes nodded. "I understand. Thank you for my visit home."

Q seemed at a bit of a loss to respond. "Well, I should be on my way."

"Won't you stay and meet the others?" Kes asked.

"Thank you, but no," Q said. "I have a pretty good idea how they'll react to me."

"Will I see you again?" Kes asked.

Q smirked. "I think I can promise that. Until next time..." With a fingersnap and a flash, Q was gone.

Kes looked at the biobed a moment, wondering if Q always darted so quickly in and out of people's lives. Q was still something of a mystery to her, and she wondered if she'd get the chance to find out more next time they met. For now, she'd met someone interesting who had given her a great gift, and that was all she needed to know.

She looked down at her hands and almost laughed as she realized they were still coated in Ocampan soil. Maybe she could save some of it to keep a little piece of home with her. Even if she couldn't, her brief visit had made Ocampa seem not so far away, and she was grateful for that. Perhaps she'd go on a longer visit one day.


End file.
